For decades, the tech industry has debated the value of hype. Is it rocket fuel for category leadership – or a distraction that sends founders and investors chasing whatever is loudest today?
The answer is uncomfortable – it is both.
Recent research from premier VC firm Sequoia, examining roughly 20 years of Hacker News data, offers a fascinating clue. When the most-hyped technology topics of each year are compared with the most valuable companies founded that year, they rarely align.
Airbnb emerged in 2008 while Google dominated the conversation. Uber arrived in 2009 amid intense interest in low-level programming. Anthropic was founded in 2021, when crypto was consuming much of the technology conversation.
So, the lesson isn’t “ignore hype.” It’s don’t chase the peak. Study the trajectory.
Large language models first entered Hacker News’ top 15 in 2016 but didn’t reach number one until 2022. AI coding ranked 12th in 2021 and reached number one by 2026. Crypto appeared in the conversation as early as 2011, years before its major attention peaks.
Today’s obvious trend may have been yesterday’s niche conversation.
That makes online communities potentially valuable early-warning systems. But a signal isn’t a crystal ball. Knowing that a technology matters doesn’t tell you which application will win – or which company will capture the value.
That’s the critical distinction for founders and investors.
Hype is a resource, not a moat.
Attention can attract talent, capital, customers, developers and media. But successful companies convert attention into something durable:
Attention → customers → retention → distribution → advantage.
The strongest companies don’t merely ride a wave of hype. They help create the wave. They define the category, shape the language and become the reference point.
Yet hype creates a paradox: once everyone sees the opportunity, competition floods in. The sweet spot may therefore sit between nobody cares and everyone cares – when a trend is becoming difficult to ignore but hasn’t yet become consensus.
So don’t ask, “What’s hot?”
Ask: “What’s moving?”
Look for acceleration, persistence and direction. A topic steadily gaining attention for five years may be more meaningful than one that explodes overnight.
And don’t confuse a growing market with a winning company. Ask the harder question: “Why will this particular company win?”
Hacker News isn’t the market, either. It’s one community – and that is precisely why it may be useful. Communities can surface shifts before they become mainstream.
The future may first appear in an obscure technical discussion, a research paper, a niche community or a strange new behaviour.
The real skill isn’t spotting the noise.
It’s recognising when the noise is becoming a signal – and knowing what to build before everyone else agrees.